Design Skills Symposium 2014Learning outputs...

Project partners and supporters

Introduction...This is Section Two of the report of Architecture and Design Scotland’s Design Skills Symposium 2014, which took place in Glasgow on the 20th and 21st March.

The theme for the event was ‘Learning from the Commonwealth Games’. The aim was to seek transferable lessons for placemaking and design for the rest of Scotland, based on knowledge emerging from preparations for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

The event took place at the Emirates Arena, right in the heart of Glasgow’s East End Commonwealth Games regeneration activity. Participants learned at first-hand about how many Games related projects and programmes have levered wider environmental, social and economic benefits and influenced transformational change in places and communities.

The two day learning process was based around small group workshops using design methods - enabling people to learn from each other, build collaboration and draw out lessons for their own practice. Three study areas were used as inspiration to test how design thinking could help address regeneration challenges faced around Scotland.

Over 100 delegates attended from local authorities and other public and private organisations across Scotland. International experts spoke and facilitated at the event. The programme included presentations, site visits and workshops. The following report presents the Learning Context, Group Outputs and Resources from the event.

The report is structured into the following key sections:

1. Context: Sets out the learning contexts participants engaged with including: International, Glasgow and local (world cafè).

2. Outputs: Presents the outputs generated by the participants including summaries of each groups facilitator backgrounds, approach, and broad outcomes as well as key images, objectives, themes and projects. Illustrations give a flavour of the big ideas suggested by each theme

3. Resources: Detailed resource sheets are provided for each of the transferable tools or methods built into the symposium programme. Explanations are given of the processes undertaken with links to related sources to enable wider application.

Developed and delivered by A+DS in partnership with The Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, Clyde Gateway and Improvement Service and supported by others including Scottish Canals, VELOCITY and the Local Authority Urban Design Forum.

Project partners and supporters

the baseball stadium whose parking can be used by other users of the city, and whose building in its lightweight architecture enables users to appreciate both baseball and the city at the same time.

Barth’s second illustration related to the changing nature of the work environment. Here, the changing nature of business practice, the value chains businesses operated in and the greater value placed on collaboration along this chain was driving a change in the form and role of the working environment itself.

To be innovative was now not primarily about developing one patent or product but about providing solutions, achieved through creating and hosting teams from up and down your value chain.

Work spaces have become activity places, more like learning environments and with a domestic look to them also. It was important that they had an attractive interior place so that collaborators would be attracted to come to your place and felt comfortable working there.

The key message from Lawrence Barth of the Architectural Association was that urbanism has been too focused on the public realm and too little on the value of buildings themselves; looking at urbanism ‘from the inside out’, he claimed, acknowledged the role that successful buildings themselves played in generating new life in cities. He cited the following examples:

San Jose - where placing a new library right in the middle of the city centre had had an enormously positive effect on the whole of that centre. Bilbao – not just one building (the Guggenheim) but rethinking the role of the river and improving connections in the city.

Cleveland - where the building of a new baseball stadium in the centre of the city was the focal point for a development focused on increasing the number of events in the city - which by their nature brought a lot of people into the city.

An increase in people using the centre of the city contributes directly to the regeneration of the city. Facilities can share services also, as with

Athletes Village

A | Smart use of assetsLawrence Barth - Cost-effective pathways to sustainable development

Lawrence Barth at DSS 2014

A | Smart use of assetsLawrence Barth - Cost-effective pathways to sustainable development

Having advocated a focus on buildings as key regenerators, and in particular workplaces, Barth then went on to look at how you linked residential areas to work areas. He described how the nature of collaborative business practice was in itself producing a new urban form where, for instance, a science park might be the hub of new urban living, with houses, offices, and research centres clustered together; this was beginning to happen in Singapore.

He used the example of the redevelopment of Hamburg’s port to show the process needed to realise this approach from the outset.

Stage 1 was providing buildings in a very basic block form, which could be used either as housing or offices, and whose main role was to generate an initial enthusiasm for the site, and get people living and working there.

Stage 2 was to contract development out to ten different developers, thereby multiplying the number of stakeholders in the project, but again working with simple building blocks. Having

developed this critical mass and momentum, the development could then reach Stage 3 – to attract big international companies to the site.

In the example of one of these – Unilever – the multi-functional, mixed use aspect of the site was demonstrated by a Cooking School taking over the ground floor of Unilever’s own building.

Only once this stage had been reached and there were enough people actively present on the site, was serious consideration given to creating a high quality outdoor environment.

Lawrence’s facilitation approach with Group A drew on this learning about value and assets.

Cleveland, Steve Tiesdell Legacy Collection

Related resources...

Related resources...

Architectural Association

A number of DSS 2014 outputs touch on the

theme of assets and value:

World Cafè

01| Integrating green infrastructure

04| Healthy sustainable neighbouthoods

07| Active use of heritage assets

08| Heritage assets - reuse and redesign

10| Culture and regeneration

Ali Grehan’s keynote

70% of venues for the Glasgow games already existed. Investments in new infrastructure and regeneration have been designed to deliver wider economic impacts for surrounding communities.

Lawrence facilitated group A, delivering learning around how a design led appraoch can help to make the most of assets that already exist in urban places, levering value and sustained benefits for communities.

Learning context...

Study areas were selected as inspiration to test how design thinking might help address regeneration challenges ftypical of those faced in other Scottish places. Group A’s location is a large social housing site earmarked for re-development. Existing towerblocks on site are scheduled for demolition. The site lies immediately to the north of a major urban centre but is bound by a motorway to the south, a railway line to the west, a cemetery to the north and a main arterial road to the east. There are large retail facilities immediately opposite to the site and to the west of the site is a canalbasin development site with an emerging hub for watersports.

Place context...

Group A | Value and assets

Related resources... Group A Workshops

Sub Group Facilitator | Jennifer Horn

Vision: Creating a liveable environment through

community connectivity and activity

Focus

• Park / contaminated land

• Existing (forgotten) community

• Connection to Port Dundas

Short term development

• Community capacity improvement

• Improve park / green space

• Create a sense of identity/destination

Long term development:

• Grow community to achieve critical mass

• Improve connections, not just physical but social (make use of Stalled Spaces learning)

• Economic linkages

• Mixed use / tenure

Group A Outputs | Summary 1

Other development points:

• Create linkages to Port Dundas and city centre.

• Creating reasons for coming to site – sports hub connected to Port Dundas water sports centre.

• Create active frontages to existing entrances routes, mixed use development to wrap around a “courtyard” park linked to the hill.

• Use of a New Gorbals typlology for development.

• Connections E-W as well as N-S.

Sub Group Facilitator | Michael Cant

Starting point: The site is unique but

unappreciated. Hill-top vantage point allows

360º views to surrounding landscape and city.

This small aspect of the site can carry significant

meaning by being something to discover.

The location also contains a stone circle, unique

in being the first to be built in the UK for 3000(?)

years – a collaboration between an artist and an

astronomer in the 70’s – a source of place-specific

identity.

Approach: Break up the site, bring people in and

up to the vantage-/viewpoint, also as a benefit for

local community. Strengthen the visibility/character

of the point by use of a light installation.

Retain remaining two tower blocks as a testimony

and link to the identity of Sighthill. These should

be maintained for different uses, possibly art

spaces or a vertical biodiversity project.

An avenue between the stone circle and towers to

make the connection between existing community,

Port Dundas and the settlement facing the

cemetery (as well as surrounding communities).

Little value in expanding towards the M8 as it is

a too impenetrable barrier. Instead the landscape

should be allowed to screen the M8 so that it can

be transformed into a positive asset, a green heart

for existing adjacent communities.

There are viability issues that could motivate low

impact development.

Group A Outputs | Summary 2

Sub Group Facilitator | Danny McKendry

Central problems of site:

Contamination, legacy of lack of housing choices and non-permanent refugee community, lack of infrastructure/connectivity, M8 location, poor links to city centre over M8.

Concept solution: A street over the M8

• Application of both big gestures and small changes working side by side to make a ‘marketable’ site

• Structure over the M8 becomes both a gateway to Glasgow and a landmark on a city scale.

• Move industrial area south of M8 to east section of site.

• Wrap route/street around hill and tie in to new grid on site.

• Continue route towards cemetery via a “green

finger” concentrating community activities /small scale services along centre axis of site.

• Gradual change in development type from light weight industrial, via live/work units to residential from east of site towards centre.

• Create a grid with flexibility of content – currently geared towards residential but this might change and structure should allow for it!

• Create stop on railway to be shared with Port Dundas.

Long-term phasing strategy: 2014, 2014, 2050…

• Street over M8 first step, incorporating buildings and creating a safe crossing.

• Connect this to the green finger comes second.

• Use city centre grid overlay to get appropriate scale/density on site.

Group A Outputs | Summary 3

Group A Outputs | Summary 4

Sub Group Facilitator | Steve Malone

Initial impressions: Edges, Link to Port Dundas, M8 issue – include/ignore?, cemetery underused green space, when there are not that many green spaces near the city centre. Economic constraints, Maximising value – how to make the site attractive?

Identification of assets: Vehicular connection commercial development advantage.Link to Port Dundas, with emerging high quality amenities to attract people. Options for a bridge / viewpoint over M8

Zones of potential: Use of art as a motorway intervention/bridging over M8, including noise barrier. Make more of the landform/hill as a focus and multi-use area. Link to the cultural activities and water sport hub at Port Dundas, by extending the water across the M8. Create a biodiversity/

landscape corridor along the railroad. Make use of the commercial opportunities in the area to the east, along the M8 turnoff:

1. Bold connection to city centre over M8.

2. Create a “New Town”.

3. Accept the restricted connections and create a high value enclave / “a place apart”

Proposals:

• Leave the potential commercial zone to the east to develop as demand arises.

• Make connections through the site.

• Create an intervention over the M8, an urban version of the M8 art programme.

• Highlight the driving experience by an innovative bridge / landmark.

Group A | The big ideas...A key focus for this group was to explore how to create value. Isolation was a major issue. Initially the groups saw a single bereft place.

Broadly, the group considered the problem by breaking down the study area into different kinds of places. The group re-thought the ‘jigsaw’ of site components and how they might be combined.

The group began to see new potentials especially from the top of the hill which gives 360 degree views of the surroundings. The groups considered the hill together with the neighbouring site. There were recreational propositions with synergies with the hill and the waterside. Even the cemetery provided possibilities.

In conclusion the group went from despondency to enthusiasm about the site. The key lesson being to build up a story of value made up of parts that work, the assets, then look at the best way of connecting things up.

Site topographies were reimagined as new urban spaces and development was then suggested in response. The group identified local expertise to develop more active forested areas, with the possibility to build on proximity to the canal for recreation and business development and that there was strong community mobilisation and outreach. A flavour of the kind of ideas people explored include:

1. A city observatory, a hill to see the city, a marker of place.

2. Resolving the interface of major infrastructure and the city form. Topography as value creation - using art and landform to create a sense of a gateway.

3. Re-imagining the hill and urban topographies: motorways, bridges, underpasses.

4. Testing strategic context of ‘new hill‘ within the city: new uses, new values.

NOTE: This illustration simply summarises a flavour of ideas generated by participants at the Symposium. It is not a site solution, nor does it constitute the official view of A+DS for any part of the city.

and possibly to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

Much of the work takes place around vacant or abandoned sites, asking how these can be turned into opportunities that can build resilience.

TuRAS also look at how to create healthy and sustainable neighbourhoods without need for cumbersome masterplans. They have developed an integrated planning module, itself intended to be the product of participative planning, whose aim is to integrate planning functions with stakeholders interests, and integrate resilience planning with everyday behaviour. The module is based on four streams of information – literature reviews, case studies, local authority questionnaires and citizen interviews. On the basis of their work so far they have concluded that an ideal planning scenario is one where ‘experimentation is allowed to flourish within a managed systematic framework’. Resilience is likely to be fostered in the form of a group of small or acts and initiatives rather than one big plan or structure, meaning that small scale outcomes, diversity and difference is important.

Facilitator...Dermot Foley, Principal of Dermot Foley Landscape Architects, introduced the group to his work with the TuRAS European research initiative, which would influence his approach to facilitation.

TuRAS brings together 11 partners in 10 different countries, connecting academic institutions with local authorities and small and medium sized enterprises to find meaningful ways to apply practice from research to the benefit of urban communities.

The project is an extension of Dermot’s own practice where research leads to design, in turn to teaching then back into research – a continuous cycle where, because of the input of research, effective solutions can sometimes be produced at very minimal cost. The project is intended to bring together top down research with bottom up initiative and activity, with the local authorities acting as brokers of transferrable knowledge.

TuRAS’ definition of resilience is of the ecological or adaptive type, where communities learn their strengths both to survive change but also to adapt

B | Healthy sustainable neighbourhoodsDermot Foley - TURAS

Dermot Foley at DSS 2014

Related resources...Dermot Foley Landscape Architects:

www.dermotfoley.com

TuRAS: http://www.turas-cities.org/

World Cafe Sessions:

02 | Activating urban parkland

05| Community reconnection

07| Active use of heritage assets - canals

09| Creative community engagement

10| Culture and regeneration

12| Stalled spaces

13| URBACT

Dermot facilitated group B, looking at the theme of healthy sustainable neighbourhoods. Participants learned how particitative planning might start to help deliver sustainable solutions for Scottish urban places, based on Dermot’s design practice approaches and TuRAS research experiences. Participants worked in five themed groups.

Learning context...

Study areas were selected as inspiration to test how design thinking might help address regeneration challenges ftypical of those faced in other Scottish places. Group B explored the potential of a post industrial, canal-side heritage to transform into a healthy sustainable new neighbourhood. The canalside site sits within reach of a major urban centre. Connections are currently poor - through a large social housing site earmarked for redevelopment to the east. To the west of the site sits an earlier successful, but isolated redevelopment of historic canal wharf buildings, and an emerging hub of creative business. New urban sports facilities and student housing are under construction in the area.

Place context...

Group B | Value and assets

Group B Outputs | Summary 1

Sub Group Facilitator | Johnny Cadell

Theme: Perception

Impressions: Lack of cohesion, lack of vitality

Proposal: Big Idea = Small Idea

Cover the site in a blanket of green.

Devlopment approach - as and when. Build on pockets of investment that are already there.

Long term development - PARK - distribute trees everywhere, using canal to move trees around the country.

Address the unsafe feeling by introducing a metaphysical lighthouse on the hill - creating a sense of safety.

Create movement by opening up the site to enable the movement of people through the site - particularly from the city centre side

Group B Outputs | Summary 2

Sub Group Facilitator | Kirsty Macari

Theme: Identity. 100 acre hill

Barriers: Physical - Topography, social, economic, environmental, political - local authority. Problems with integration and social perception. No cohesive identity - ‘desert island’. Anti-social behaviour and unstructured land use. Key things are happening but not visible and well connected.

Desired environment: Attractive, adaptable, secure, useable, habitable, multifuntional use. Create a healthy and sustainable neighbourhood.

Approach: Multi-funtional use, creating green spaces and networks, thinking about development over the very long term. Permenant green infrastructure

Proposals: Short term intrventions to improve physical connections. Break down the barrier of the M8. Take the canal across the M8!! Tool to kickstart a community in the area. Create a sense of arrival. Canal as catalyst.

Group B Outputs | Summary 3

Sub Group Facilitator | Calum Robinson

Theme: Strategy

Approach: Trying to kickstart lots of different things

Brief: Take the best bits of what’s happening and grow them. People doing different activities on the site.

Proposal: Small beginnings. Scaling up over 1, 3, 5, 10 years.

Year 1: Small scale infrastructure and environmental inprovements. Greening up.

Year 3: Stalled spaces. Hard landscaping terraces. Access to top of the hill. Sculpture on top of the hill. Temporary living accomodation.

Year 10: Hill has strong identity. Becomes a place to go. Flexibility is a generator for getting developers to come in. Recreation - BMX mountain. Biking, Parkour, Sports Dundas.

Group B Outputs| Summary 4

Sub Group Facilitator | Bob Hastings

Approach: A distinct identity with opportunities for doing or trying new things. A dynamic space.

Brief: Leverage a sense of identity by using the existing assets for the short term (20 years)

Proposal: Improve connectivity to the area. Have less restrictions on uses for the site. Create a public space which encourages curiosity, with physical connections and perceptions or glimpses of things to encourage exploration.

A place of possibilities: A Glasgow viewpoint, an urban ecology space (habitats and wildlife - natural regeneration), multi-acivity, a ‘destination’ at the end of the canal (using the canal and its topography). Creative, temporary uses.

Sub Group Facilitator | Steve Mcphail

Theme: Communication. 100 Acre Lab

Approach: How to fix this identity. concentrating on successful assets in the short term. The more we are innovative, the more we will be able to tackle future challenges. Dont want to force anything too specific. theres no great imperitive to do anything. No great need to develop here. A place to think about what to do on other sites. The outcome is the process - ever changing.

Proposal: Create a district identity, Do things in new ways, Encourage curiosity, Place of possible, Viewpoint, Ecological Urbanism - place to experiment - wildflower meadow

Timeframes: 20 year progression - a day in the life - encourage people from all over Glasgow. A becon to attract cafe, paddle, work, meet and dine

If it succeeds will become permenant, built.

What is the community - Glasgow. Giant WASPS studios. Bid for a piece of land.

Temporary to permenant use over time - ever evolving. Bring in community in smaller increments.

Group B Outputs | Summary 4

Group B Workshops

A key focus for this group was observation of human behaviour: what people like to do and where. The process the group followed was like a form of modern archaeology; looking at the different layers of the existing sites to identify nooks, crannies, spaces and artefacts that could seed new forms of development, a plan of many small ideas.

There were similarities between the subgroups solutions, with sub-groups arriving at inter-related conclusions for different reasons. All

Group B | The big ideas...groups looked beyond the site. Flexibility was commonly seen as a way to attract investment: unconventional adaptability. No certainty is not necessarily a problem for investment – it could attract it. The site could be a “place lab” to experiment with different ideas.

A form of urban planning was suggested based on incremental change. Big ideas, capturing the imagination about overall potential, were linked to small ideas of practical and achievable social, environmental and economic outcomes.

A flavour of the kind of ideas people explored include:

1. 100 acre laboratory; a place to test ideas for the city.

2. A cleansing and safe space: recovering the site [woodland]. Creating a ‘blanket of green’.

3. Urban archaeology: use site topography, urban fragments, history.

4. An observational space: probe, sense and respond to where people want to be.

NOTE: This illustration simply summarises a flavour of ideas generated by participants at the Symposium. It is not a site solution, nor does it constitute the official view of A+DS for any part of the city.

Cities are engines of growth and jobs – promoting entrepreneurship, improving innovation and knowledge economy and providing employment and human capital.

Creating attractive and cohesive cities involves the integrated development of deprived areas, the promotion of social inclusion, dealing with environmental problems and running good governance and urban planning.

URBACT asserts that while city development means change, change is difficult and a framework of sharing ideas makes change easier.

The citizens’ role in the development of cities is important, but citizens need to be actively engaged – they don’t appear automatically.

URBACT believes in the concept of co-creation and puts much emphasis on the creation of local support groups and local action plans. It views the city as ‘an open source software; nobody owns it, everybody can use it and anybody can improve it.’

Facilitator...Bèla Kèzy facilitated Group C. Trained as an economist, Bèla is founder and senior consultant of MEGAKOM development Consultants and ICG Ex Ante Consulting Ltd and lives in Hungary.

Bèla’s facilitation approach was informed by his work with URBACT, a European exchange and learning programme, promoting sustainable urban development.

URBACT acts in cities because 50% of the global population lives in cities, 70% of greenhouse gas comes from cities, and cities are a concentration both of many good things and of many bad things.

URBACT believes it is easier to get cities working together than regions, and that challenges in cities are surprisingly similar the world over. Great cities often steal good ideas from each other and URBACT acts as a framework for this. In the programme European cities come together to work on challenges. The URBACT programme has engaged 5000 people in 300 cities in 29 different countries.

C | ParticipationBela Kezy - The URBACT approach

Bela Kezy DSS 2014

Many creative, collaborative approaches were taken to build the capacity for people to make changes in the run up to the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Participants in this study theme learned how participatory planning methods can be used to support people to take a leading role in shaping their places.

The site...

A number of other DSS 2014 touch on the

theme of participation:

Active use of heritage assets

Cuningar Loop Activating Urban Parkland

Community Reconnection

Creative community engagement

Health Inequalities

URBACT

URBACT Glasgow

Stalled Spaces

Gert Urhahn’s keynote presentation

Learning context...

Study areas were selected as inspiration to test how design thinking might help address regeneration challenges ftypical of those faced in other Scottish places. Group C’s study site was a former industrial regeneration site in the East End of a major urban centre. The site has good road, rail and cycle connections and is within walking distance of a range of new and established residential communities. The site is located immediately beside a newly refurbished rail station which acts as a key arrival point for two major sporting arenas. On neighbouring sites, a new landmark office building has recently opened. Another site belongs to travelling communities. A major river lies within walking distance.

Place context...

Related resources...

Group C Outputs| Summary 1

Sub Group Facilitator | Francis Newton

Theme: Get it right, Grow slowly and healthily

Approach: Intuitive: establish basic rules, structure and timescales.

Proposal: 0-5 years focused on developments through intuition, with larger open spaces available for hosting temporary pavilions for any scenario. Establish a basic landscaping framework and structure to build on. Exploit it through events, programmed to raise interest in coming to the area. Ideas included circus tents, temporary parklands, festivals and camping grounds.

Year 5 would see the area unified as a destination, a “Health Hub” connecting the city to the surrounding green spaces by the river. Existing built assets will be re-used, consolidating the areas remaining built heritage and creating more permanent and new functions for the site.

Year 10-15 will establish a core community, developed around healthy living, with the creation of a city farm and plots for self-build housing initiatives. This will create individuality, quality of living, a uniqueness of place and produce more organic pattern of growth for the area.

Group C Outputs| Summary 2

Sub Group Facilitator | David Thompson

This group aimed to create a cohesive vision addressing existing fragmentation.

The group’s proposal incorporated elements to reconcile of uses and public realm around a reimagined cross:

• Community Campus / Sports Academy uilding on centrality and site linkages to major sporting facilities and active travel opportunities as an unique asset.

• Urban Woodand Networks - connecting communities through environment / play.

Incorporating new green networks into key routes and facilitating improved access to surrounding networks - eg up axis to arena, and to join area to the river network.

• Encourage temporary use of vacant or derelict land - Fairground to encourage social reconnection with exisiting communities and to encourage a rethinking of the site as a destination for visitors.

Group C Outputs| Summary 3

Sub Group Facilitator | Lesley Wells

Theme: Temporary / productive use of vacant land

Approach: Conceiving the wider area as a parkland setting and destination (akin to Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen) – challenge and change perceptions of the area

Brief: See vacant land as an asset to seed and enable locally relevant proposals

Proposal: Link with and involve existing communities in the area in occupying vacant land; a series of temporary ‘circus/amusement/carnival’ uses that activate vacant space; which then move to other locations as land is taken up for

development. Instead of feeling ‘lost’ or ‘isolated’ new development/ buildings are perceived as pavilions within a wider ‘festival landscape’ within which ‘big tents’ and tall features become landmarks and signal new life and vitality. The proposal seeks to bring back people to an area. The area is presently a destination for occasional large crowds (e.g. Emirates Arena; Celtic Park) with supporting infrastructure, e.g. Dalmarnock station. The proposal seeks to capitalise on the infrastructure and straddle the two scales of ‘monumental’ and ‘human’ to activate and tame both the major roads and vacant and derelict space through carnival type activities.

Group C Outputs| Summary 4

Sub Group Facilitator | Emma Halliday

The proposal developed the idea of creating and enhancing the routes and connections through the site and down to the riverside.

The proposal also developed the idea of a marker on the corner, perhaps similar to traditional market crosses, that could give the location a visual identity, mark its position next to the railway station and at the bottom of the main road from the Emirates Arena.

The group also explored the idea of staggered development on the site creating a multi-purpose

public space that could be used for temporary activity such as markets.

It was proposed that development on the site could be a mixture of commercial, business start-up and social. The idea was also to enhance the streetscape along all four sides of the site.

Participation, the process of engaging with people in an open way about how they live and imagine their lives, is a process well promoted in urban development. Group C explored the use of places people understand as ‘hubs’ or focus areas, from which to build connecting ideas, urban forms and services. The focus was on bridging processes of participation with the process of spatial planning.

Sub-groups explored the use of time limited interventions for immediate impact, overlaid with longer term ideas about big city-making, landmarks, connecting big spaces. There was a strong landscape feel to ideas; city as park.

The main route through the study area was viewed as extremely important as there is a lot of derelict land around it. The area acts as a crossing point to the “big box” (arena and stadium). The new residential village with its formal urbanism was referenced and the newly renovated station, while low key, was also a focus.

There were four different approaches but all the sub-groups proposals extended beyond the site, suggesting ideas about how to start to stitch the urban fabric together.

Exciting opportunities were presented to consider a new urban pattern emerging from the site. The groups’ ideas included:

Offsetting the Cross to concentrate on a new kind of public realm. Proposals for events space – somewhere events can take place with space for temporary uses, community driven.

City landmark: a real marker – for example a tower – between the city and the stadium/village.

Re-making streets: arena to river - building up streets and city blocks from existing roads.

Starting with vacancy - see vacant plots as parkland, a playful space. Assembing vacant land could start a new urban pattern – inc experimental urbanism, self-build, things to get the economy going eg: Christiania, Copenhagen.

Group C | The big ideas...

NOTE: This illustration simply summarises a flavour of ideas generated by participants at the Symposium. It is not a site solution, nor does it constitute the official view of A+DS for any part of the city.

Group C Workshops

Architecture and Design Scotland

Bakehouse Close, 146 CanongateEdinburgh EH8 8DD

Level 2, 11 Mitchell Lane,Glasgow, G1 3NU

T: +44 (0) 845 1 800 642F: +44 (0) 845 1 800 643E: info@ads.org.uk

www.ads.org.uk